Online Marketers to Stamp out Spam?

CodeHog writes "A group of online marketers want to get rid of spam and are proposing a registry base system for transmitting email. They are calling the project Lumos. Computer World has an aritcle on it Online marketers offer new antispam initiative . Doesn't it seem like these are the same businesses that profit from spam? Even better, this is being proposed by ESPC. The member list doesn't look too anti-spam to me." The obvious issue of course is that most spammers won't follow the rules anyway. My spam is up 20% over the 1st quarter of 2003! Yay!

Comments

Yes, let's hand email over to marketers

[Anonymous Coward]

And lets also hand over civil rights to the Klan.

Like this is going to save the world

[Blaine Hilton]

This seems like a ploy to legitimize spam. I see this as actually increasing the amount, not decreasing it. The only people that will likely benefits are the advertisers that use this Lumos thing to get their email on a "approve" list. Much like the NAT sensors in a recent slashdot article, this will just make the spammers change their methods, if it even takes off in the first place. Although this plan seems at least to me that it is ill fated, something needs to be done about spam. Like censorship though it's probably best left to the end consumer and not some blind upstream connectivity provider.

Go calculate something

Re:Like this is going to save the world

[Musashi Miyamoto]

I totally agree. This would probably cause you to recieve more spam as a result. However, it might be a bit more cleaned up and "professionalized".

The only way to stop spam is either re-work SMTP or intellegent spam filters... Its hard to knock spam filters nowadays... They are almost artificial intelligence in their ability to spot a spam e-mail. Its amazing... Try a good one like iHateSpam and see... They remove close to 99% of spam.

I predict the first self-aware system will not be a 2001 HAL-like supercomputer, but a spam filter running on someones desktop.

"What are you doing Dave? How about a lower mortgage rate, Dave?"

Re:Like this is going to save the world

[johnnyb]

Having been involved in Internet marketing myself, let me say that most business don't want to send you email that you don't want to receive. That includes the mail houses that send them. The ones I have worked with get between a 10% and 30% _click_ rate. Why? Because send very targetted emails.

Few people are advocating any longer sending mass emails to everyone they can find an address for. Most people have found that using legitimate sources of addresses (such as your customer list, trade-show lists, and small targetted lists) get great results that customers are willing to pay for.

These people are usually sending out up to 10,000 emails at a time.

The professionals involved _want_ email marketing to be legitimate - because it gets higher-dollar business for them.

Re:Like this is going to save the world

[Moses Lawn]

"What are you doing Dave? How about a lower mortgage rate, Dave?"

Dave, I've been meaning to talk to you. I don't think you are pleasing her as much as you could. If you would increase your penis size, Dave, I believe this girl would like to meet you. Here is a video...

Re:Like this is going to save the world

[Pharmboy]

We do opt in mail. Under 10k, once a month, and I design them.

We send them text only, one page only, very quick bullets with links in plain text. The real newsletter is on the site, and we just use the email to say hi and direct them to the site. We explain why we do it this way in the email. We get a great response, good feedback, and less than 1% unsubscribe per cycle. We go out of our way to be and look responsible. Each email has an opt out link and our toll free phone number, that is answered by a real human being.

We have never gotten a complaint by going these extra steps. The way we use it, it is legitimate. We don't send to all customers, ever. Only to those who opt in. Yes, we want email marketing to become more legitimate because most of us are. The only way achieve this legitimatacy is to get rid of the real spam.

Most companies are responsible with commercial email, its just the few who use it as the sole business that make it look bad for those of us who it only plays a small but important role in our marketing.

Spam up 20%

[RollingThunder]

My spam is up 20% over the 1st quarter of 2003!

So how can I get spam futures into my portfolio? Something going up 20% a quarter is just what the stockbroker ordered!

Incredibly intuitive notion

[mao che minh]

Terrific idea. I assert that we should also award the power to draft anti-monopoly legistlation to Microsoft Corporation.

Re:Incredibly intuitive notion

[cpeterso]

In related news about foxes watching hen houses, the Federal Trade Commission has selected AT&T to operate the new national do-not-call telemarketing list. Unfortunately, AT&T is #1 on the FCC's list of telemarketing complaints for 2001, 2002, and 2003 Q1.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/904102.asp?0cv=CB20

web log spam

[dirvish]

I know this is kinda off-topic but I am kinda fired up about it right now. I just got done posting a comment to the Antispamist's Spam Forum about the increasing spamming of my web server logs. I am using a script that displays the recent referrers and it is currently half full of spam. Has anyone else had problems with this? This recent bout seems to stem from one guy

Re:web log spam

[Mr. Sketch]

I am using a script that displays the recent referrers and it is currently half full of spam.

Hmm, now it seems to be half full of slashdot.org referrers.

Re:web log spam

[Chmarr]

There are a number of popular Weblogs (blogs, whatever) that are being hit with this kind of thing. The reasoning is that these logs often display their referrers to the public. So, as a spammer, you can get some free advertising on these sites by accessing the blog with a referrer containing your message.

Stupid, yes, but who is attributing spammers with intelligence?? :)

Of course

[7x7]

I will gladly post my email to a public "do not mail" list. I assume the list will be harvested to "remove" me.

Show of hands

[Anonymous Coward]

My spam is up 20% over the 1st quarter of 2003! Yay!

How many others use (something)@slashdot.org for all the email entries for anonymous ftp servers, web downloads, pron logins, etc, etc?

Thing is, Taco, you and your editors are easy targets, and not all that highly respected. Your spamload is completely atypical.

The company I work for gets very little spam, on the scale of a couple dozen a month for hundreds of users. We have no filters in place at all, it's not a problem here.

It isnt random. You're just the internets chump.

me too.

[nege]

I agree- every time I call Verizon I get a nice message in a soothing voice telling me that they respect my privacy. Yet I know they sell my number to telemarketers because I don't give that number to anyone else but personal friends! Then they will sell me some telemarketing blocking technology, and sell the telemarketers anti-telemarketing technology technology and so forth. I don't see how this email stuff will be different...but then again Im completely jaded.

Oxymoron

[ad0gg]

Kinda like letting the fox guard the chickens. I have feeling this to weed out porn, and "penis enlargement" emails so the marketing companies don't have worry about their spam getting diluted.

Tracking spam

[Anonymous Coward]

My spam is up 20% over the 1st quarter of 2003!

You track your percentage of spam? And keep historical notes?

WOW! Get a life..
Hrmm...how long can you live without touching a keyboard? Take a deep breath, pry yourself away from the cheap fake leather chair, and go outside. You can do it!

Someone needs to create a support group for people like this...Kinda of like Alcoholics Anonymous.

Meetings would have to take place through Instant Messenger/IRC until you can pry them away from the computer.

cannot stop spam.

[Musashi Miyamoto]

Unless SMTP is re-worked to disallow false source addresses, spam is not going to be stopped by a system like this. As long as there is no accountability from the sources of spam, it will continue to be pumped out from overseas. Though projects like PennyBlack and SpamNet are good in concept, the only one that has proven to work is intellegent filtering. Spam filters like Spam Inspector remove around 99% of junk email... You need to have one to make using your e-mail account worth using again...

I couldn't imagine my Yahoo mail without their spam controls... (Unlike Hotmail, which spams you themselves)

Re:cannot stop spam.

[minas-beede]

What is the goal - to stop spam coming to you or to just plain stop spam? That latter would be everybody's spam. Seems like stopping everybody's spam would have the bigger payoff.

You stop your own spam when it comes to you. You stop the spam for everybody when you let the spammer send relay spam to a box you control. To see if you are qualified to do this take this simple test:

If your system receives relay spam do you:

(A) Deliver it

or

(B) Not deliver it?

If you answered (B), Not deliver it, you have passed the test.

The spammers are looking for open relays and open proxes all over, every day. Right now they don't know the difference between a real open relay and a fake. This is an opportunity. Create a fake open relay, let them find it (which means you allow their test message to be delivered) and then watch to see if spam rolls in [remember the correct anser above was (B).]

Re:cannot stop spam.

[amuro98]

Spam is not a technology problem.

It's a social problem. It's a problem of greed, laziness, and a general disrespect for anyone and everyone.

No matter what sort of technological wizardry is concocted, spammers, like cockroaches, will slip in between the cracks.

I don't care about filtering spam. I want a system that will prevent the stuff from ever being transmitted in the first place (like maybe a keyboard that would explode, mortally wounding the user if the keyboard detected that the user was going to spam...)

Re:cannot stop spam.

[AnotherBlackHat]

... the only [spam stopping] that has proven to work is intellegent filtering.

There are two schools of thought on this,
which I like to call "spam assassin" and "spammer assassin".

People in the spam assassin school are interested in not reading spam.
To them, anything that stops them from reading spam "works".
They would rate things like Baysian filtering as incredibly successful.

People in the spammer assassin school are interested in stopping spam from being sent.
They would rate things like Baysian filtering as a dismal failure that "misses the point".

Intelligent filtering is effective against spam,
but not against spammers.
It may or may not "work", just depends on your school of thought.

-- this is not a .sig

Re:cannot stop spam.

[Isofarro]

You throttle it moron. Make it a tarpit.

That's short-sighted - amusing for the tar-pit owner but short-sighted. The strengths of tar-pits is that they keep a spammer occupied for the one session he's using it. He is more likely to recognise a tar-pit than a fake open relay, and thus more of a chance he'll move on.

What happens when a spammer finds that an open-relay is too slow or only accepts x emails at a time before slowing to a crawl - he'll move on to other "proper" open relays.

With -bd's suggestion and implementation of fake open relays, the spammer _thinks_ he's emailing millions, so he continues using this "open relay". The relay doesn't forward the email on, just forgets it. That equates to less spam being delivered.

-bd has been doing this on a 486 for well over a year. Maybe he can give us an accurate figure of how much spam it has not delivered?

Once in a while the spammer will send a test email - once this pattern is recognised, allow that email and no others through, and the spammer is none the wiser about this "open relay".

IIRC one of the regular users of -bd's relay is Alan Ralsky himself.

1/3 of all email is spam according to PCWorld

[zbowling]

According to this artical on PCWorld 1/3 of the email on the internet is spam and the rest is mostly person-to-person communications. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105525,0 0.asp I support anti-spam legisitlation.

Marketers

[jawtheshark]

SPAM makes Marketers look bad. I know people around here have no love for marketers at all, but I'm going to show you they are not all bad. My best friend *is* a marketer and I'm an IT guy. (He works for Panda Software , just to advertise a bit for them)

Anyways, when I told him about practices that spammers use like reselling email lists, scavenging webpages for emails, etc... He was outraged. Yes, you read that right. It just went completely against ethics for him, because that is not what they teached him at the business school.
He even got more outraged when I explained him what spyware is, but that is another can of worms.

Essentially, SPAM and Spyware is what the "real" marketers look bad. They're just the scum of the industry.

Re:Marketers

[Lozzer]

I recently got spam from Panda entitled "HOW TO FIGHT THE NEW E-MAIL WORMS (Advertising)". Do you think that because Advertising was in the title its OK? Wrong. Tell your marketing friend that he is no better than the rest of the scum that he professes to hate. Or maybe they'd like to add some validation to their sign up, plus leaving the please forward this to anyone who you think might like it crap off the bottom.

My Spam is down -(1/0)% in the past month...

[tigersaw]

...thanks to mailblocks (click here for original article about it). It was a pain at first getting all my contacts and listservs entered into my safelist, but since then I've been 100% spam-free. I just check my pending folder once a week or so for stranded messages. And heck, $10 for a 12MB inbox for three years is a deal compared to the big boys.

Porcus Percoquere Ad Nauseam

[jazman]

Hmm, Guild of Spammers...sounds like something Terry Pratchett might have thought up for the next installment of Ankh-Morpork.

(Couldn't find "spam" in my Latatian dictionary, which also doesn't have a section on how to convert the infinitive to past tense, so "to cook pig" will have to do.)

ESPC are spammers

[gorbachev]

"The member list doesn't look too anti-spam to me."

That's damn right. It's the Who's Who of spam-for-hire operations. Every single one of them spams. It's just that they claim their spam is not spam.

Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. Remember to shoot the knees first, so that they can't run away while you slowly torture them to death.

Gulp

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I'll have to figure out somewhere else to get my Blue Pills. I guess I've have to make an embarrassing trip to the doctor's office. Dang ;)

Sure fire way of stopping spam

[dfn5]

[wildstar] # sh /etc/init.d/sendmail stop

Email is more useful then the phone

[zbowling]

With all this talk about spam, I wondered the legitimacy of using email. I rarely ever get an email from hand-written from anyone anymore, and I ussally send about 1 email a month at most. I mostly use it to register for websites now. I must be wrong though. According to this artical on PCWorld, more IT people prefer using email over calling someone.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,110409 ,0 0.asp

"80 percent [of IT professionals surveyed] said they see e-mail as a more valuable communications method than the telephone, and 74 percent said they would have more difficulty if they lost e-mail access for five days than if they lost phone access ... E-mail is apparently more important [to users] than some companies think"

This might actually help...

[Ironica]

Consider the movie ratings system. It's not in any way government regulated; it's run entirely by the Motion Picture Association of America. Whatever disputes I have with their policies and practices, you have to admit, the industry has been fairly successful at eliminating the need for government regulation through self-regulation.

It sounds more like these spammers are getting together to find a way to continue sending requested marketing email. Spam has gotten so bad that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater at the ISP level, before the consumer even implements their own filters. They're afraid of losing the ability to market via e-mail *period*, so they've come up with a way to screen it.

If it actually works as they claim (in terms of unsubscribe rules, identifiability, and so forth) it might be a way ISPs could filter out commercial email that *doesn't* conform to this protocol, while still allowing commercial email to happen.

I'm not saying I think it will (or won't) work, but I think this is probably a sincere attempt to regulate commercial email in a manner that will be acceptable to consumers.

Give them spam back

[Pettifogger]

If everyone really wants to get rid of spam, do what I do. With every delievery, I forward it to my free "spam" account on Yahoo. Then I either send in a bogus order or ask them a lot of pointless questions about their product.

A number of people here have mentioned the extremely low response rate to spam. This is what allows it to survive. Imagine if their response rate went up something like 5000%, but 99% of those were fake, but realistic responses. This would *instantly* kill the profit motive. More staff will be required to process the fake orders/replies, and they'll have a devil of a time weeking out the true from the false responses. Eventually, the profitability scale will tip, and that is when spam will end. No program, list or change in technology is going to stop spam until everyone stands up and gives it right back to them.

Re:Give them spam back

[Xerithane]

I disagree. What your proposing really skirts the line with fraud, and much of it would illegal in about 85% of the world.

How is responding to their spam and asking for more information fraud? This is actually a decent idea, and I'd like to setup a script to do it. You send me spam, if my bayesian filter marks it as such you get a response from a freshly created mailbox on my mail host asking for more information on your product. If there are web links to be had, to a wget on those to grab some bandwidth.

That'd be kinda fun, actually.

The key is to find a way to make Spam expensive. After all, the problem is that these people can send out 80 million e-mails and the total cost is the price of a list and a few dollars in bandwidth. We need to find a way to fight back and make the cost of transmission higher.

The bandwidth doesn't matter. Bandwidth is cheap. Getting personal intervention is what will do it. Create throw-away email addresses to ask for more information. If there isn't a valid reply to email in the spam, find their webpage and write a script to scour for sales@, contact@, support@ and send them a nice form mail.

This would be hysterical, really. Then, when they respond to the throw-away email address, you can have a human intervention step. If they respond, then start asking much more questions about their product until they give up on you as a piker.

Re:Give them spam back

[dcmeserve]

More staff will be required to process the fake orders/replies, and they'll have a devil of a time weeking out the true from the false responses.

Hmmm, you know a lot of them have on-line ordering, including a step where they validate your credit card number. I wonder, what's the effect of an invalid card number being entered? Obviously they have to check w/ the card company to see if it's valid. Is there a cost associated with that? i.e. does the company have to pay 0.01 cents or something per query?

If so, that could be a way to directly increase the cost of sending spam (or of hiring a "marketing firm" to send spam). You go to the spam-sponsor's web site, fill out the order with bogus information, including dummy credit card info, then repeatedly hit "send". Could a script could be set up to do this? Hmmm.

The plan is backwards

[mattsucks]

Their idea, which boils down to a giant opt-out list of email addresses, impresses me not. If they proposed a giant opt-in list, I'd be a bit more excited. Of course, nobody would sign up ... I can't imagine too many email Oliver Twists out there saying "Please sir, may I have some more [spam]?"

And would you entrust your email address under any circumstances to an organization who's entire business is sending marketing email?

Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam...

[seigniory]

Just because you get an email from one of these companies in your inbox doesn't automatically quantify it as spam.

God forbid that you, as an individual, forget to uncheck a box when you bought your last DVD or CD or book or whatever online. God forbid that you own up to your own impatience and your click click click lifestyle that results in you glazing over or not even caring about the terms and conditions of your latest purchase.

Does it suck that it's so easy to get signed up for some mailing lists? Absolutely. But you know what? The fact remains that even if you make it as easy as possible and have DOUBLE-opt-IN mailing lists, it's inevitable that someone will complain and accuse you of spamming them. It's human nature. I know from experience.

Are there shady companies scouring around for email addresses? Sure, but any established company with a decent bankroll, employees, investors, would NEVER stoop to such levels - it's too much of a risk. You wouldn't believe the legal mumbo-jumbo I have to go through just to send out my monthly newsletters - and I'm not even considering myself one of those "established companies". All conspiracy theories and "Well I had a bad time with..." experiences aside, as a majority, companies DO respect your wishes when it comes to receiving email - they DO respect your wishes to keep your address private - and they DO make sure that you're happy with the way you're treated. They have too much at stake to behave like children and rebels when it comes to mailing you.

Like a number of other issues bouncing around this world today, the SPAM problem seems to have taken on a life of its own. Everyone's all about jumping on the anti-SPAM bandwagon and complaining on message boards about "The Man" and his itchy SMTP trigger finger. Is spam annoying? Sure. I'll be the first to say that something really needs to be done about all the huge penis emails I get every day - I'm fine with my super-python - leave me alone already!!! :-P

Well you know what? These people that do email for a living ARE trying to do something about it and what do we hear on /. ??? The classic "(insert name here) is trying to take our rights away and make money off of us and they suck. Open source forever and Linus rules my world and does email suck so much when blogging is the communication method of the future".

These companies know that they need email to survive, and so they're making sure that classic penis/Viagra/Nigeria spam doesn't give them a bad name. Pure and simple. You should be glad that something like this is happening. It might not cut down on the solicitations you get in your email, but at least all those ads will be for things you like, or have signed up for. Ever wonder why you don't see commercials for Gerritol & Depends on Cartoon Network at 2:00am? No old people are up watching it because the advertisers have a well-defined and mature methodology of knowing where and how to promote their products on TV and they don't have to worry about their audience getting annoyed by ads for things that they don't want.

Marketing and advertising is here to stay for good, people - it's everywhere, including email. Even if this plan isn't perfect, we should at least be applauding someone for doing something proactively about the issue instead of reactively. Not all ads are "evil". Spam sucks, targeted marketing about things I'M interested in is welcome - if there's no easy way to filter out the good from the bad everyone loses.

Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam...

[Frostalicious]

Ever wonder why you don't see commercials for Gerritol & Depends on Cartoon Network at 2:00am? No old people are up watching it because the advertisers have a well-defined and mature methodology of knowing where and how to promote their products on TV and they don't have to worry about their audience getting annoyed by ads for things that they don't want.

Don't compare spam email with television ads, there is a fundamental difference.

TV ads help pay for my TV experience.
On the other hand, spam emailers make me pay for receiving their emails, through higher ISP bills.

One of these situations is a mutually beneficial business agreement, and the other is exploitation. Can you guess which is which?

Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam...

[ArmorFiend]

the advertisers have a well-defined and mature methodology of knowing where and how to promote their products on TV and they don't have to worry about their audience getting annoyed by ads for things that they don't want.

What TV are you watching? That doesn't sound so bad.

When I was a kid watching cartoons I *swore* never to spend a penny at Smith's furniture because they totally over-advertised during Battle of the Planets. And I'm sticking to it. Ditto for snuggle fabric softener, etc.

Now I'm bombarded by car ads. I think driving is immoral. I have no car and won't buy one untill I'm too old to bike. Yet 30% of tv commercials are car ads, and most of them are really REALLY inane and stupid.

When we have real pervasive directed advertising, like some sponsored links on search engines, will be a great day. I would even go so far to say that if target audiences could "rate" ads they're subjected to, and dumb or irrelevant ads cost the advertisers more, and cool, funny or apropos ads cost the advertisers less (and hence they actually make a profit).

Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam...

[Sylver Dragon]

God forbid that you, as an individual, forget to uncheck a box when you bought your last DVD or CD or book or whatever online. God forbid that you own up to your own impatience and your click click click lifestyle that results in you glazing over or not even caring about the terms and conditions of your latest purchase.

There is, in this, a large part of the problem why UCE is viewed in such a dim light. I have highlighted the applicable section. These things should always be opt-in, always and without exception. It really is just a sneaky method of getting people to agree. If it is known that most people will fall into the next-next-next mode when going through a series of forms, and you don't want to send emails people don't want, then your design should plan for this. Have the box unchecked by default, and allow those users who want the email, to check it. You are simply lying to yourself and us if you belive that an opt-out methadology can ever co-exist with the desire to only send email to those that really want it.

Well you know what? These people that do email for a living ARE trying to do something about it and what do we hear on /. ??? The classic "(insert name here) is trying to take our rights away and make money off of us and they suck. Open source forever and Linus rules my world and does email suck so much when blogging is the communication method of the future".

I agree with you here, it would appear that the companies involved in this are making a valid attempt to get the real spam under control. Though, I think this could be better solved by creating a huge opt-in list (which is not sold or publicly printed) such that, if a company wished to send a bulk email campaign, they send it through this list, and it then gets forwarded on to the intended and willing recipients. Probably also have some preference settings, which a recipent selects during sign-up, that allow for filtering based on interests, thus making the ads more targeted. And lastly, allow for immediate remove, by a user, of their email address from a list. Oh, and the hard part, give some sort of value for allowing one's self to be marketed to.
Of course, there would still be those abusers, you will never be rid of them. We will still get our "Enlarge Your Penis and Keep It Up Forever with Viagra" ads, but then we could start working on this problem, and not bother people who run legitamte mail-lists.

Image Makeover

[Steve B]

Basically, these guys want to shake off the image of the sleazoids who sell you herbal Viagra to get your larger penis up while you watch images of hot teen lesbians.

However, they don't show any sign of being willing to bite the bullet and accept a pure Opt-In model -- which is the only way they can avoid the name "spammer".

It is now escalating out of control

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

As the owner of several domain names I am now facing the problem from 2 angles -

That of me receiving SPAM to my personal email account(s), _AND_ that of my domain names being used in the from/reply-to addresses of SPAM email.

The latter I actually find more frustrating. What makes it worse is my domain name is being used in HTML emails - your average [l]user has no idea that it is HTML, and in the message body sees only "EXTEND YOUR PENIS NATURALLY CLICK HERE" in big bright purple letters. The fact that the link goes to http://www.iamascumbagspammer.com/ is not apparent - what they do see however is my domain name in the from line of their email client.

I actually think that the we would be better off if the anti-spammers stopped pursuing their cause and just let spam take out the Internet's email system.

Then we can start again from scratch.

Surely SMTP's time is up.

Re:You are a fucking moron

[Ataru]

A while back I was a bit busy so I stopped checking my home email regularly. As I was getting over a hundred spams a day, it was quickly mounting up. A couple of times I sat there and deleted 500 or so, looking carefully for anything from friends and family. Just over a month ago I was overwhelmed. I got 127 today, so now I have 5521 messages in my inbox. That email account is basically fucked. I have no idea if there are any legitimate emails in there. Fucking spammers. Hanging, drawing and quartering is too good for them.

Turn $25 into $500,000 in 6 months

[DrSkwid]

Hello,
You may have seen this business before and
ignored it. I know I did - many times! However,
please take a few moments to read this letter.
I was amazed when the profit potential of this
business finally sunk in... and it works!

With easy-to-use e-mail tools and opt-in e-mail,
success in this business is now fast, easy and
well within the capabilities of ordinary people
who know little about internet marketing. And the
earnings potential is truly staggering!

Send me $25 and I'll send you the tools.

How to do this for real

[mdfst13]

Since this proposal seems aimed at making it more difficult to become a spammer (you have to get certification to bulk mail) but protects "authorized" spammers, I would say that it is a spam promotion mechanism. The largest spammers will be able to send spam, because they can afford to buy the certification (which also protects them from ISP blacklists, etc.). Smaller spammers will no longer be allowed to compete. Further, it would also eliminate the ability of *legitimate* mailing lists to send newsletters, etc. without certification.

I think that this is way overcomplicating the situation. What is the number one reason why spammers can't be detected? They use relays and proxies to hide their identity. How to fix this? Only accept SMTP mail from servers authorized to send email for that domain. This would require a new DNS record (call it an SMTP record for now). If a server does not have authorization to send email for a domain (say yahoo.com), then when the receiving server looks up the SMTP record, it won't find it and will reject the email.

If the server is authorized, then the email will go through. If it turns out to be spam, then the sending server can either stop sending email for the spammer or be blacklisted. This will make relaying much harder. Also, it makes it useful for SMTP servers to authenticate users. Currently, this is meaningless in the fight against spam, since one could just use an open relay instead. However, if only authorized smtp servers were allowed to relay mail, then requiring authorization prevents spammers from sending mail under a false email address.

This would create a traceable system and allow spammers to be identified without forcing client software changes (might have to change SMTP configuration). Spammers would have to own an account or a domain name in order to send spam. Either requires payment and contact info. Faking the contact info would be fraud which would be prosecutable by tracing the payment.

Leverage existing law with proper infrastructure.

ESPC Link -- Sure, I'll give my E-mail address

[richg74]

The ESPC page linked to above has this headline:

Fighting Spam While Protecting Email as a Legitimate Communication Tool

Then, they helpfully offer to send me details of their proposal. What a good idea! I am just totally convinced of their sincerity by their request for my E-mail address so they can explain how helpful they'll be.

Do they think turkeys vote for Christmas ?

The IETF has an anti-spam research group

[NFW]

Why don't these people get involved, and discuss their plans with people who really understand the issues involved in reinventing SMTP?

Perhaps because that that is the very last thing these people actually want?

Faking Google Link Popularity.

[DeionXxX]

By having links to your site in someone else's logs that are visible through a browser. It creates a LINK from YOUR site to the SPAMMER site. Therefore inflating their google score. I had a client as me what I thought about this idea and I told him that it was underhanded and a bad idea, so he didn't pay the money to do it.

Re:Meaning

[tinfoilgrrl]

Maybe from the Ancient Greek lume meaning outrage, maltreatment, corruption, damage, etc.

Or they've been reading too much Harry Potter.

This is not the way to stop spam

[bigberk]

New email registries will decrease spam? Set up by online marketers? No, sorry, I don't buy that at all. Remember what their interests are. The problem at hand is... most spammers don't care about creating inconveniences. They are like greedy undisciplined children, and won't stop spamming unless they are forced to (by law, vigilante retaliation, etc.)

To say something constructive now. There are two neat server side spam filtering projects I really like because neither uses IP-based blacklists (blacklists can bring a lot of collateral damage and require frequent judgement calls).

Spamprobe can be run from .procmailrc and uses a Bayesian scoring type of approach. It's a user-level solution which requires some training, but once it's accurate it's quite amazing. Currently it's missing only 3% of my incoming spam.

The Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse also runs server side and uses fuzzy checksums to identify mail that is being received by a suspiciously large number of mail hosts around the world. A brilliant idea which works better than you may think. I have never seen a false positive with this system, and it misses about 1/4 of incoming spam. Effectiveness will improve as more hosts join the distributed checksum system!

They just can't leave me alone.

[slumos]

It wasn't that long ago you could search for 'Lumos' and get one hit (me). Then it was some company, then a Harry-Potter-ish font, (then a hundred other Harry Potter things) and now I'm a spam registry.

Anybody else out there with extremely rare last names but the domains are all taken by companies anyway?

I guess I should be grateful that they opened up .us and I was able to jam myself in there before somebody else did.

it's a lie.

[twitter]

Funny you should mention the motion picture industry, yet another cartel. Yet Hollywood looks honest next to spammers and phone hucksters. There's nothing sincere about this effort but the desire to make money by obnoxing all of us.

These turkeys just want to keep out their competitors. Shemes to add intelligence to the internet are all designed to make it imposible for any but a select few to send the adverts. They seek legitmacy and government protection for their abuse of a public network. That's not something I'm willing to give up my ability to run a mail server for. Nor do I wish for my ISP to be forced to pay fees for the new service which will garantee spam forever.

So called "accountability" schemes to rework mail protocal are equally evil. The 1:1 network of copper wires known as the telephone system is abused all day long.

The answer is to simply outlaw these obnoxious practices. Unsolicited comercial calls are abuses of public networks and should not be tollerated. People who would abuse their neighbors this way should be fined and put in jail.

Re:it's a lie.

[twitter]

Unsolicited commercial calls and faxes *are* in many cases illegal. It helps so much. Automated calling, automated answering machine messages, continuing to call after being requested not to... all illegal, all practiced. How do you propose to *enforce* such laws?

It does help. In places that junk faxes get you fined, there are few if any junk faxes. Anyone trying to sell you something will make sure you know who they are and how to get in touch with them. Laying down the fine is not hard. Few companies wish to risk their reputations and cash that way. Everything else has been a failure.

ESPC

[mark_space2001]

The ESPC website is darn interesting, check it out. In particular, they have a mailing list on yahoo groups, ostensibly for people to complain about false positives by spam filtering software. Really, it's a way for spammers to communicate about filtering, but it's really interesting to go there and browse through the list archives, which are freely available. Any admins out there might be well served by checking up on this list periodically.

The ESPC website also has a box where you can add your email address and receive "information" from them about the ESPC itself, which I would *ahem* not recomend. ;-)

Re:ESPC

[myov]

The ESPC website also has a box where you can add your email address and receive "information" from them about the ESPC itself, which I would *ahem* not recomend. ;-)

nai@networkadvertising.org
...
webmaster@doubl eclick.com
...
webmaster@advertising.com
...
w ebmaster@yesmail.com

(see http://www.networkadvertising.org/espc/members.asp )

Some people do want the marketing information

[Ra5pu7in]

At issue here is what each person calls spam. To some people, anything that is not personal mail from a friend or family member is automatically spam. Not everyone is this stringent about considering any and all marketing to be spam.

What if, because of laws and technology to eliminate spam, you were unable to get nearly instant quotes for auto insurance or mortgate rates? What if, because of laws and technology to eliminate spam, you could not get price notification from a favorite vendor?

In reality, I would like the chance to opt in knowingly for certain things and be on the mailing list for information that is relevant to me. That doesn't mean I want registerng for a site to mean I am added to 5000 third-party mailing lists for everything from Viagra to vacations in the Carribean.

If you actually review what the referenced system would do, it may be a step in the right direction ... without (sorry for the cliche') throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Parent came from a spammer or spam supporter

[Dimensio]

The fact remains that even if you make it as easy as possible and have DOUBLE-opt-IN mailing lists

I stopped reading right here. There is no such thing as "double-opt-in". The term is used by spammers who have apparently taken the phrase to mean something that does not, in any way shape or form, involve the recipient consenting to receive the e-mail.

Re:Parent came from a spammer or spam supporter

[dreamquick]

Just because you don't understand what a phrase means doesn't make it something wrong...

Double opt-in is when you ensure that the user relly does want to be sent an email (ie they have to physically do something to get email - it wont happen by default).

That's the first stage of opt-in.

Next you verify that they gave you the correct email address by sending a test email which asks them if they still actually want to recieve your email.

Again to continue they must physically do something - if they do nothing then wont be added to the list.

This is the second stage of opt-in.

There were two opt-in processes so that's why it gets called "double opt-in" - it's not rocket science.

Unsubscribe Buttons

[yintercept]

Thanks to Seth Godin, spammers had a year or two where they could claim legitimacy by including an unsubscribe button at the end of the message (the popup that you put on the unsubscribe page often pays for the spam.)

Now that people know the unsubscribe button is a ruse, it no longer buys legitimacy. Making a big national unsubscribe service that is trusted will give the email marketers another year or two of legitimacy.

The funny thing. Spammers themselves tend to hate spam. I should say, they hate the spam sent by competing spam shops. The competing spam dilutes the audience. They especially hate new spam shops. As a result, most would agree to proposals that reduce the over amount of spam...so long as they don't lose their share of the market.

I wouldn't be surprised to see existing spam shops try and form mechanisms that reduced spam, and closed the market to new comers. It would buy legitimacy and preserve their share of the market at a reduced cost.

Of course, the emarketers are in a tight situation...they know the other people in the group are emarketers looking for any advantage and that they cannot be trusted.

Not Surprising: just like drug dealers

[jadavis]

Drug dealers only make their high profits *because* of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The DEA restricts supply to the U.S., thereby increasing prices and taking out the "little guys". Generally, when the DEA gets a tip, it's from a rival drug lord.

It's the same with this SPAM thing. They want fewer "little guys" around so they try to force the supply of SPAM down which increases the effectiveness of their own SPAM. Not altruistic by any means, but if it lands fewer junk emails in my box each day, it's fine by me.

Re:I don't believe you

[nege]

Actually I think cell phones are handled differently - obviously if that happened and people knew about it on their cell phone they would cancel the phone because they are paying to hear telemarketers talk to them - not acceptable. So verizon wouldnt jeapordize that. But people dont care as much when the line is free and all they have to do is hang up.